Number of children under care of Dundee City Council reaches record high

The number of Dundee children in council care has reached a record high of more than 700.

The total includes 21 babies less than a year old and 36 children who have suffered domestic abuse.

Social work director Alan Baird is warning that the city council’s own fostering and residential services have reached ”saturation point” and his budget is heading for a £1.6 million overspend.

There has been a near doubling in the past year in the use of expensive family placements outside Dundee and a recent rise in the number of children in secure accommodation — which costs £5,000 per week for each child.

Mr Baird said the increases are down to improvements in identifying children at risk, but more work is needed to support children so they can stay with their own parents, their extended families or within their own communities.

Next week he will ask councillors to back a 16-point action plan aimed at trying to reduce the pressures on children’s services.

He has produced figures to show how the social work department has had to cope with an ever-increasing number of young people who need to be looked after.

A decade ago the total stood at 356 but has risen every year — it now stands at 707.

Social work got an extra £1 million when the council set its budget for 2011/12 and another £500,000 has already been added from contingency funds, but Mr Baird reckons his department will still be spending far more than planned.

He said: ”Despite recruiting more in-house foster carers, demand for appropriate family placements continues to outstrip the supply and the council has had increasingly to rely on the use of external placements.”

The average cost of having a child looked after outside the city is £1,100 per week, compared to £320 for an in-house placement.

There are currently 84 children in external placements, a 70% rise since last year.

There can also be extra costs from having to pay for classroom assistants in other local authorities to help a child at school, along with travel costs for social work staff and family members visiting a child.

Spending on the council’s own residential and secure units is in line with budget expectations so far this year, but Mr Baird is warning that the extra demand now being seen for secure places means ”expenditure can increase rapidly over a short period of time”.

This is down to a rise in the number of young people exhibiting risk-taking behaviour, such as substance misuse, sexual activity and absconding.